Story Poetry and Metaphor:
Subjective Solutions for Subjective Problems

Despite a few weak smiles, the faces of senior management mostly displayed anxiety and/or aggression. Jaws tensed and released. The CEO shook my hand a little too hard. I stood before thirty-three post-merger survivors surrounding a U-shaped table. When the CEO introduced me as "a young lady from North Carolina" I winced. This "merger of equals" was not going well. The CEO clearly saw the dilemma as "us vs. them" and considered me (hired by the Chairman of the Board) one of "them." His sabotage of the process had begun in earnest. Military metaphors like "necessary losses" and "taking a bullet" had placed lines of demarcation and created an impasse. I needed a story to create some grey in their black and white world.

There are a few smiles, nods, and some cut their eyes to meet others’ across the room. One guy uncrossed his arms. They know I am not talking about my dog, Larry. Only a story could simultaneously address all positions. The Larry story connects to a universal human experience. It offers an opportunity for introspection about personal responsibility without pointing fingers. It gets their attention. And it might have earned me a few points for being a nice enough person to adopt a greyhound. I would even suggest that it offered a healing touch to hidden fear over the fate of those who "don’t win." Story and metaphor are powerful for anyone hoping to shift a group’s perceptions quickly. I’ve told the Larry story dozens of times. Others have borrowed the story. It is a gem. Told well, a story can shoot past defenses and get to the heart of a matter. Better still, it can prompt introspection within the privacy of a listener’s mind without risking public admission of error.

What is Story? It is a narration of a sequence of events that simulates a visual, sensory, and emotional experience that feels significant for both the listener and the teller.

If experience is the best teacher, then story is second best. Bullet points on a powerpoint screen are dead, inanimate representations of someone else’s conclusions. Story has the power to breathe real life experience into charts, tables, numerical analysis, and statistics so listeners can see, hear and feel enough of an alternative perspective for it to become real. Once an idea/initiative feels "real" in their imagination, people are much more likely to do what it takes to make it real in the physical world. No matter how smart your conclusions seem to you…they are still yours, not theirs.

Reporting your conclusions sets up a either/or situation that creates too much competitive tension. Story takes their thinking backwards and then forwards again through the experience of your story in a way that prompts their own new conclusions – which they will value much more highly than your conclusions. In addition, a really good story has the power to connect humans to their emotions and access deep shared wisdom that lies beneath language. Many people are making bad decisions because they simply don’t have the time to think deeply. Story is a way to create or re-awaken "common" sense (i.e. shared meaning that works).

Poetry

Perfectionists and idealists often turn to cynicism as a defense. Since these are usually your best and the brightest, releasing them from the tyranny of self-criticism also decreases cynicism. However, an objective description of the detrimental effects of self-limiting beliefs is in equal parts accurate and ineffective when compared to reading Mary Oliver’s poem, "Wild Geese"

Poetry and story have the power to shine a light into dark places and shift the emotional receptivity of a group in a way that redirects the flow of their thoughts – in this case, away from old self-defeating loops towards new thinking that can lead to new solutions. Reading a poem is like listening to music that changes how we feel long enough to find a fresh perspective on a day that has been downhill since breakfast. Our perspective pops from seeing the old lady to seeing the young woman, the vase instead of two faces, or any of the other perspective popping drawings you might remember. This flickering of perceptual perspective gives people new choices when they are stuck – it gives them access to their own creative intelligence and wisdom. It opens doors. Poetry is a tool that induces perceptual agility so people can begin to learn how to do it for themselves.

But How do you SELL it?

None of this sounds like the "sure thing" a client wants you to promise before he or she shells out X amount of money and two days of her top performers’ executive time. I can see a senior manager’s brow furrow at "perceptual agility" or "shifting the emotional state" and imagine the theme song from the Twilight Zone playing in the background of his mind.

Reconnecting people to their wisdom or common sense is difficult to explain in objective terms. Articulating an agenda or defining "outcomes" for a highly subjective process is difficult when the client (or the client’s boss) has not yet experienced (or still doesn’t trust) the unpredictable nature of subjective solutions. The tyranny of agendas, objective measures and outcomes has distorted our ability to do good work.

Objective criteria distract us from tending to the subjective aspects of organizational life. Recently a dialogue between federal judges, clerk of court, and staff was called to discuss the spotty implementation of their new IT system. Focus on implementation plans, "accountability" systems and follow-up had failed to increase compliance. After getting permission to talk about subjective issues, they discussed for almost two hours, who says hello in the morning. One particularly formal looking judge (no one dared address her by her first name) burst out "Well, no one says hello to ME!" The shocked looks were testament to the fact that no one had dreamed that she cared. Was this dialogue relevant? Only when you interpret that saying hello in the morning was operating as a metaphor for "respect" for this group and that the IT system was held up by people who had decided they had no intention of cooperating with anyone who did not show them enough respect to acknowledge their existence with a "hello" in the morning. After this dialogue, people started saying hello in the court hallways and the implementation of the IT system proceeded much more smoothly.

Many groups are suffering from untended subjective issues invisible to objective criteria and quantitative analysis. Objective, analytical methods "disappear" subjective truths before they can be tended. This accounts for meetings where a group talks for hours and "never talk about the real problem."

Not only do problems disappear with objective, quantifiable criteria but many of the solutions get "disappeared" too. Most of us think kittens are cute, right?…but trying to produce "cute" as a measurable outcome is like cutting a kitten in half to examine the quantifiable inputs that create "cute." In many cases our "analysis" destroys the very thing we seek to understand. Subjective methodologies like story, poetry and metaphor cannot survive intact when subjugated to objective criteria or agendas. I sigh when "corporate storytellers" try to provide linear recipes by "crafting" outcome-based stories. The result is a bizarre mechanical kitten that looks like a kitten, sounds like a kitten, costs a hell of a lot more than a real kitten, and falls way short of being either cute or engaging (although it never poops, you don’t have to feed it, and you are guaranteed to get the same result every time.) Stories that result from this 1,2,3, linear recipe approach are almost always boring and patronizing.

Objective vs. Subjective Reality

Objective thinking routines introduce a terrible alchemy to subjective truths that transform gold into lead. I try to pre-empt these thinking routines with a model that protects subjective truths long enough for a group to tend to issues that need tending. This model has accelerated both a.) permission to introduce story, metaphor, and dialogue and b.) the transfer of story, metaphor and dialogue skills. The model reduces defensiveness, build credibility, and pre-empts the "tried that, didn’t work" responses that high achievers sometimes place on this "soft stuff." It takes about ten minutes to deliver.

We already know that no matter how "right" a plan is by objective measures, if people don’t accept it – if they simply don’t like it at a subjective emotional level – it’s not going to succeed. We spend hours on cost/benefit analysis, information flow and system architecture (doing "real work") and come up with the perfect new compensation structure, but if people don’t like it, it won’t happen. The "quality" of the decision is dependent on the "quality" of the acceptance of that decision. We intuitively know subjective truths have a profound impact on our success. What we don’t seem to know is what to do about it. Objective truths have been elevated over subjective truths for so long that we tend to label time spent making the "right" decision as "real work" and time spent on subjective issues as something less.

Neglecting the ‘soft stuff’ is bad enough…but tending to the "soft stuff" with objective tools built for "real work" is like carving coffee cups with a jackhammer. Or building a "value based" organization by passing out laminated cards.

Lightening fast mental routines embedded in us by a well-meaning educational system over-rely on objective criteria to tell us what is true and what is false….to the extent that we inadvertently discard our natural-born understanding of vital subjective truths like trust and loyalty. Because objective truth is either 100% true or it is false – one failure and an entire principle is discarded. One jerk and some people never again trust senior management. One betrayal and they never leave a subordinate’s work unchecked. But subjective truths are … subjective. Even when a subjective truth is "true" only 70% of the time (i.e. "employees left alone will do the best work they can") it doesn’t make it a half-truth. Consider the subjective strategies you use to "create" inspiration, courage, or integrity in your own life, for instance. There will be times when the theme to "Rocky" flares your nostrils and gives you energy and times when it makes you smirk. Trusting subjective truths that may let you down 30% -50% of the time is better than discarding these truths and reverting to systems designed for worst case scenarios.

Many a manager who has suffered the nightmare of facilitating a decision from a group that can’t even agree on what to order for lunch has rejected the subjective truth that "group input creates better decisions." She stops trusting that principle because by "objective standards" she ran an experiment and the principle failed. She decides that making the decision herself and pretending to get group input is a much better strategy. (If your mind is saying, "well that just means she didn’t have good consensus building skills" first let me say, "DUH!" and second, "this is exactly how inquiry and learning about subjective issues stops before it gets started.")

Subjective issues are also resistant to our habit of looking for a root cause to the problem. Many groups reveal that "lack of trust" is a problem. Unfortunately looking for the root cause on this particular issue invariably turns into a "whose fault is it" blame game that accelerates defensive reasoning. Counter-intuitive as it may feel examining root cause on trust issues will usually make things worse. Subjective problems respond much better to subjective tools and solutions.

Metaphor

Change what people see and feel and their behavior will change accordingly. When "lack of communication" is the presenting problem it is safe to assume each individual is operating with an untold story about who or what contributes to this lack of communication. As long as these stories – founded on negative assumptions about people who don’t care, are incompetent or overly self-interested – remain hidden they are untouched by a more balanced collective story.

Few senior managers will admit to their staff, "I feel alone and afraid" but a metaphor drawing of a ladder that’s too short to "get to the table" and getting shorter due to the efforts of a group of stick figures with chainsaws can express those feelings. The branch managers who assumed this senior manager was sucking up to the CEO instead of representing their interests can now see more than they saw before – the metaphor gives a glimpse into his inner experience. When you increase a group’s ability to see their boss’ internal struggle and positive intent you will change the way they treat him, the effort they make to communicate with him, and the support they offer.

Metaphor has the potential to disable negative judgment and solution-jumping long enough for individual perceptions to intermingle, cross-pollinate and stretch to include a "bigger picture." The branch managers show their maps too, a train with square wheels, a boot that threatens to crush their good intentions, and a road map that leads to a dead end. These negative subjective feelings have had no other place for expression so they festered. Once expressed, they lose their sting. They even become laughable. The sharing of metaphor maps usually gets a group laughing - a subjective source of healing and creativity that beats the hell out of any other intervention technique I’ve ever seen. Laughter is a solvent for negative emotions.

Getting a bunch of objective thinkers to draw metaphor pictures requires stealth. I hide the markers and the paper until we need them. Before resistance can build, I present sample metaphor maps, explain the task, and give them five minutes to draw a metaphor of the current dynamics of their group or organization. As hidden beliefs about the futility of communication or cooperation are revealed they are simultaneously re-framed by seeing other’s hidden beliefs. Sure, only 50- 70% of the maps provide insight but in a group of ten or forty that is a LOT of insight.

Insight pops at several points. Sometimes it happens when a person looks at their own map (a tornado of bodies sucking in a line-up of "new hires"), sometimes it happens by seeing others’ maps (bailing out a sinking boat), and sometimes it is occurs in the conversation that follows ("I just got back from the Gulf War, and if I’m not drinking powdered milk and I can kiss my kids goodnight…this ain’t that bad"). Ultimately, each individual’s metaphor enters the collective memory of the group unabridged and begins to create an opportunity for a new group metaphor to emerge. Conflicting truths that cannot be reconciled in a true/false framework, reconcile more easily within the "two sides of a coin" framework of metaphor.

Objective criteria force us to choose sides on issues like whether last year’s performance was good or bad. Metaphors allow the complexity of "it depends on how you look at it" to be expressed. It may have been a good year financially but all the dead bodies tell another story. You can feel the pop of recognition that occurs when people begin to understand that they each have a different piece of the same damn picture. They don’t actually disagree they were just using different definitions of good.

Business people trained to deliver a problem description via objective language lose the subjective content. If a manager describes the last re-organization as demonstrating a "lack of communication" when she really means "I feel like I’m being treated like a rat in a cage" we lose the ability to tend to the "real problem." We need tools to reveal the subjective issues behind rational descriptions. Argyris’ Left Hand Column exercise promises access to the unspoken, but in practice this wonderful tool doesn’t work as fast or as effectively as metaphor. Smart executives mangle the intent and manufacture lightening fast resistance to the awareness the Left Hand Column offers. We need tools that reveal the subconscious before the conscious has a chance to disable it with logic. We need tools that help us laugh at ourselves and give us permission to stop pretending that we are something we are not.

IN CLOSING

Recently a group of PhD physicists and engineers took the Objective/Subjective Truth model further than I expected. "You realize that quantum physics moves even objective reality over to the subjective side, don’t you?" I said, "Yeah, but that is a little too scary, don’t you think?" We just both smiled and moved on.

It’s all in how you look at it.